News

Toronto mayor admits smoking crack cocaine

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is shown speaking to reporters at the City Hall in this still image courtesy CBC in Toronto November 5, 2013. Photo: Reuters/Courtesy CBC

By Cameron French

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted on Tuesday that he has smoked crack cocaine, probably “in one of my drunken stupors,” but insisted he’s not an addict.

Speaking just days after Toronto’s police chief confirmed that police have recovered a copy of a video that two media organizations have said shows the mayor smoking the drug, Ford told reporters he had smoked crack, perhaps about a year ago.

“Yes I have smoked crack cocaine,” Ford said in his first admission of drug use after six months of evading the question.

“But, no, do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I have tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago,” he said.

Elected in 2010 on a cost-cutting platform, Ford has maintained strong support from voters in his suburban base even as the scandal has escalated. A poll taken after Police Chief Bill Blair confirmed the existence of the video put Ford’s approval rating at 44 percent, up five points from a previous poll.

Ford repeated on Tuesday a plea to the police to release the video, which he told the Toronto Sun newspaper was probably “not pretty”. He said he would not quit or take a leave of absence.

‘HAMMERED’ AT FESTIVAL

Ford has already apologized for “mistakes” in his past, admitting to being “hammered” at a street festival this summer and drunk at city hall after-hours on St. Patrick’s Day last year. All four big Toronto newspapers, including the right-leaning Toronto Sun, have urged him to quit.

“I don’t even remember,” Ford said on Tuesday of his drug use. “After some of the stuff that you guys have seen me, the state I’ve been in. It’s a problem.”

In May, when the Toronto Star newspaper and the Gawker media blog first reported the existence of the video, Ford said he does not use crack cocaine, and he could not comment on a video he has not seen.

Blair said on Thursday that police had obtained a video “consistent” with the Gawker and Star accounts, recovering the video from a deleted hard drive scooped up as part of a wide-ranging drug probe.

But that video did not in itself not support charges against the mayor, Blair said.

Contacted after Ford’s admission on Tuesday, a police spokeswoman said: “The information will be passed on to investigators.”

COUNCIL SUPPORT WANING

While Ford’s popular support has held strong, his once rock-solid supporters at city hall have started wavering.

City councilor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a member of Ford’s cabinet-like executive committee, said he will bring a motion to the next city council meeting asking Ford to take a leave of absence. Council does not have the power to force Ford out of office.

“It is very disappointing to have the mayor of the City of Toronto admit to smoking crack cocaine,” he told reporters. “I was disappointed at two levels: firstly that he did it, but secondly that it took him so long to admit it.”

Another motion circulating at city hall would seek to restrict Ford’s ability to remove people from his executive committee and other standing committees.

Ford’s personal life made headlines even before he was elected mayor.

In 2006, when he was a member of city council, Ford caused what the Canadian Broadcasting Corp called “a drunken ruckus” during a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game, shouting obscenities and insults until he was ejected.

In 2008, police charged him with assault and threats to his wife, but then withdrew the charges, citing inconsistencies in her story. Ford maintained his innocence, and the two later reconciled.